“In My Life: A Musical Theatre Tribute to The Beatles”

The Beatles are the biggest- selling musical group in history, and people of all ages are huge fans. That includes Axel Clarke, who plays the role of Ringo in “In My Life: A Musical Theatre Tribute to The Beatles” tonight at the Old Town Temecula Community Theater, including performances backed by a quartet from the Chaparral High School Orchestra.

The show is not simply a concert, but a musical narration of the history of the group from beginning to end.

“‘In My Life’ is a blending of musical biography and stage show,” Clarke said. Manager Brian Epstein is the narrator, “and we perform music from the era we are talking about. We open in The Cavern and Brian does a spotlight monologue about how he came across The Beatles. We actually have a dialogue section where they meet him for first time and consider the possibility of working together. For every scene, we do some historical part connected to the songs we play.”

According to Chaparral High School Orchestra teacher Janis Fuhr, they will be playing on “Eleanor Rigby,” “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude” and “A Day in the Life.”

For Sikkink, Beatles music is a part of growing up, as she heard the music in her household on a regular basis.

“I’ve played mostly classical music since I started playing 4½ years ago, and the songs by The Beatles that we are doing are some of my favorites,” said Sikkink. “‘Eleanor Rigby’ is my favorite of the ones we are doing because it is one of the songs I grew up to.”

For violinist Perez, this is her first experience with Beatles music.

“This is new to me,” she said. “I’ve never paid much attention to them, but I knew they were famous.”

And she has become a fan, of sorts, of “A Day in the Life.”

“I was practicing the music and I liked the melody of the part,” she said. “It’s also the one I play more on, so that could be it.”

The quartet members also have plenty of experience together.

“The four of us are in the orchestra, and we are also in the Bravura Youth Symphony, so we’ve been playing together a long time,” said Perez.

As for Clarke, The Beatles have always been in his life in some manner.

“When I grew up, my dad was a huge Beatles fan, so it was always playing around the house. So through osmosis, the songs get ingrained,” he said. Co-producer Andy Nagel “and the producers of the show put up an ad more than three years ago that they were casting for the role of Ringo, and I thought, ‘Hey, that’s interesting.’ I had done a little acting and it was mostly musicians at the audition. Obviously, I got it.”

And they have tried to keep it pretty close to the original.

“We realized and accepted the level of detail needed for this,” he said. “We try to keep it as accurate as we can.”

As Ringo, Clarke does have some time in front of the microphone.

“In the play, we do ‘With a Little Help,’ and some other shows we will do ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘Act Naturally,’” he said. “At times I will come down and add a fourth vocal part to the song.”

Clarke also is in charge of the set list, which is no easy task.

“It’s a constant battle with the rest of the guys and audience perception, but at the same time you lose your mind if you do the same set list every show,” he said. “It’s always an experiment. There are probably about 15 to 18 core songs at the show where you feel someone would feel cheated if that song wasn’t played. That leaves another 10 spots open where you can rotate things to keep it fresh.”

Generally it’s a hits show, but not every hit they play is the biggest hit of The Beatles. Sometimes the list is influenced by whether there is a quartet joining them and how advanced they are. That’s where the teen musicians come into play.

“Most of the time, it’s the foursome on stage, but for the play they bring in the quartet to help out,” he said. “One of the scenes has us leaving just Paul out on stage and he pretends to have a dialogue with George (Martin) and they come up with the idea of a string quartet. Depending on the quartet, we might mix in some other things. Sometimes if they are really kicking, we will do ‘Eleanor Rigby.’”

The Temecula show will feature that song.

There’s also a certain purity the tribute band wants, even covering the errors the originals made.

“We strive to get everything right, even copying mistakes,” he said. “For example, if you listen to the first break on ‘All My Loving,’ Ringo starts playing the beat a hair before the next chorus. Some tribute bands and others might say they aren’t going to play mistakes, and while it feels odd I may be playing a mistake, we strive to get it as close to possible.”

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t grounded in reality.

“There’s still going to be a lot of yourself in what you do,” he said. “I’m not Ringo, but I’m Axel interpreting Ringo.”